


yer mother darns socks in hell

by youatemytailor



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Banter, LOTS OF SEXUAL TENSION also feelings, M/M, Sexual Tension, Terrible accents, cant believe they're the golden couple of nassau and everyone knows it bye, flint and silver get drunk and caught in the middle of a conspiracy theorists meeting, gossip fic, its here lads, set between s3 and 4, silverflint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 03:37:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11349069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youatemytailor/pseuds/youatemytailor
Summary: Christ, Flint thinks. He fuckinghatesFreetown.





	yer mother darns socks in hell

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, at last. As promised. Inspired by the response I got to [this](http://annevbonny.tumblr.com/post/162118211006/okay-so-i-rewatched-404-last-night-and-basically-i%20) post I made on Tumblr. I apologise in advance and profusely for the terrible written accents, but they were half the fun, really. Takes place between s3 and 4.

"Be honest," Silver says. "What are the odds that we come out of this alive?" 

"Uhh—" Flint starts. And then a great many things happen at the same time.

A visibly intoxicated server carrying an armful of drinks to a table in the corner trips and crashes to the ground. A deafening chorus of drunken laughter erupts, and only grows louder when a second man—in his hasty retreat from a knife being wielded his way by a towering brute at the bar—backs over the server and falls on top of him. One of the two throws a punch, one of the two pulls some hair, and in the blink of an eye a fight breaks out. 

The brawl is bolstered instantly by more men leaping up from their seats as if they had been looking for an excuse to stretch their legs all night. Tables are overturned. The entire tavern starts to cheer. For some inexplicable fucking reason, the bard in the corner begins to sing. Flint struggles not to roll his eyes.

"The odds of our survival here are quite high I'd wager," he yells over the din.

Across the table, Silver snorts a laugh. In unison they lift their glasses as the ground begins to vibrate to the tune of the brawl. The deafening noise is held at bay somewhat by the divider surrounding their corner seats, offering some semblance of privacy to boot, but it is nowhere near enough to drown out everything. At one point Flint has to get a hold of the potted plant on the windowsill to keep it from toppling over. 

 _Eleanor would never stand for this kind of buffoonery_ , Flint thinks as he watches a chair soar through the air. For the tenth time that day he regrets his decision to dock at Freetown instead of holding off until the Maroon camp to resupply. Flint hates it here. The tavern is too small and too warm and too fucking _loud_ ; the crowd it has attracted tonight cannot be properly contained and spills out onto the street, throngs of drunk men warbling insufferably all around.

It’s Silver’s doing, of course. He’d roped Flint into stopping here, just as he had roped him into stepping off the ship into town. It was imperative to—what was it he had said? Blow off steam. Try the ale.  _Interact with the locals._  Flint thinks he would rather die than speak to these people.

The fight has reached its crescendo—six men have each other in headlocks and a seventh gets kneed hard in the groin by a woman he knocks into—when the barkeep steps out of the back room and proclaims the next round to be on the house. The noise level peaks so sharply then that Flint can feel the fucking windows shudder. Men who were all set to murder each other moments ago cheer happily and hug one another, and ten more servers pile out of the bar with trays full of free drink.

It’s not the chaos of the place that bothers Flint, really. He's used to chaos. If anything it’s the _lack_ of it that’s getting on his nerves. War is on the way, war is almost  _here_  and yet these people are somehow still pretending that they will be able to keep their doors closed on it, unaware that it will not even deign to knock when it arrives. Sitting among them makes Flint feel like he’s sitting in the belly of something dying; something that doesn’t know it will soon be dead.

The commotion has simmered down to a bearable hum by the time Flint turns in his chair to find Silver staring at him. He’s got one hand on his crutch and the other on his drink, and some of his hair has come loose from the leather tie. It serves to make him look frayed and a little dangerous. To top it off, he's frowning. And  _that_ is definitely dangerous. 

The close scrutiny quickly grows unbearable. “What is it?”

"The question I asked," Silver says as he sets his glass down. “You haven’t answered it.” 

"I thought I had.”

"A joke is _not_ an answer."

Right. It had been a relief when the fight broke out. Casually, Flint looks out of the window. He's immediately met with the sight of a man retching his guts out against a church wall.

Christ, he fucking  _hates_  Freetown.

"Our latest victory was significant," he says, turning back to Silver with a grimace. "England will have to take some time to regroup and in the meantime we will have the opportunity to add numbers to our ranks. The odds of winning this war tips further in our favour every day."

The lantern hanging over them sways a little, shifting the shadows over Silver’s face as he narrows his eyes, unconvinced. "That's all well and good, Captain," he says, leaning forward on his elbows. "But you know that I'm not asking if we'll win the war. I'm asking if you think we'll live to see it won." 

The silence that follows is punctuated only by the insufferable wailing of the bard. He’s a bad enough bard to be irritating but not enough to be amusing, which means there’s no chance of it lifting Silver’s black mood. Flint finds himself wishing another brawl would break out so he doesn't end up making promises he knows he can't keep: that the war won't be the end of him, that the war won't be the end of one or both of them. Either way, Flint feels himself unlikely to survive and likewise unwilling to voice the conviction out loud.

"We're going to suffer losses," Flint says at last, and reaches for the bottle by Silver's elbow. "There will be no way around that. But I think our victory is near guaranteed as long as we—" 

A deep, frustrated sigh cuts him off. Silver gives his beard an agitated scratch and leans back into his seat, relenting. "Does this usually work for you, then?" 

"Rum?" Flint fills Silver’s empty glass first. "I find it helps immensely, yes."

" _No_ ," Silver says, and his tone has finally, finally lightened. A weight lifts off of Flint's chest. "I meant— _this_. What you're doing. You’re not as good at it as you think you are. I’m forced to wonder whether it actually ever works.”

It’s infuriating, the way Flint’s mouth wants to twitch into a smile at Silver's familiarity. There are days when Flint swears he can’t remember how they got here; there are others when the road they travelled together is all he can think about. He doesn't know if the thing that swells up in his chest every time Silver speaks to him this way is gratitude or resentment. It’s likely a bit of both. 

“Yes, it works,” Flint says, pushing Silver’s glass at him to shut him up. “Men usually want to live, you see.” 

“Naturally.” Silver takes a hold of his drink. "And of course it helps that everyone is so terrified of you that they don't press when you evade their questions."

Flint shrugs, suppressing a smile. "Well, it doesn't hurt." 

The reputation that he had painstakingly built had a habit of keeping people at arm's length, this was true. There were other ways to garner obedience – like being _liked,_ apparently – but fear was certainly the quickest. It saved so much fucking time. It was also not exactly unwelcome that it drove people away given how little Flint wished to be around them. Most of them. 

The tavern is still bustling with chatter but Silver has gone deathly quiet. It’s unsettling, the way the sky is unsettling right before it splits apart to reveal a storm. And Flint had very few qualms facing a tempest when it threatened to swallow his ship whole, but  _this,_ Silver's pointed silence, is not something he's ever able to survive for very long _._ He resists the urge to look at him and sets about pouring himself a refill.

"Does it bother you, then?" Silver asks, at long last. Flint recorks the bottle and keeps his eyes down, even with the way Silver is craning his neck to meet them. 

"Does what bother me?" 

Silver’s chair creaks. "Does it bother you that I'm no longer afraid?" 

 _Yes_. That's what Flint wants to say. A little fear of him is a good thing—a _wise_ thing—and Silver is a fucking fool if he has divested himself of it entirely. Flint looks up to say as much and finds Silver’s face a hands-breadth from his own. And this, even this would be fine, if Silver weren't _smiling_ ; a warm, dark hook to his mouth that twists in Flint's belly like a knife. The room seems to spin; Flint feels himself lean in, and Silver's smile widens.  

There's a resounding crash from right behind Flint's chair. He tries to tamp down the instinct to startle but he's already half out of his seat when there's a burst of warmth around his wrist.

"Easy," Silver murmurs. 

It's another long moment before Flint realises he’s frozen, staring at their entwined hands on the table. Silver tips his chin up to look at Flint, and cast in the flickering orange light of the lantern overhead, Silver is fucking  _glowing_ ; Flint's eyes catch on the tight run of his jaw, the dark hollow of his cheekbones, the bright glint in his eyes. The curve of his bottom lip. He holds Flint's gaze and his grip gets tighter for a dizzying second _—_ his thumb brushing over the veins of Flint's wrist _—_ before it loosens again. And then Flint is sitting back down and Silver is leaning back in his chair, dragging his hand off as he goes. 

"It's just drunks," Silver says, shrouded in darkness again. His voice has gone strange. 

Flint opens his mouth to speak. Truth be told he doesn’t know exactly where he’s going with it—his mouth has gone bone dry, making it unlikely that he’ll be able to string two words together let alone a whole sentence—mercifully that is when the conversation growing louder on the other side of the divider reaches his ears.

"Is that—“ he sputters, trying desperately to focus, “Are they—"

"Finally heard them have you?" Silver takes a sip of his drink. "They've been at it for the better part of the hour."

"They— _what_?" 

The noise Flint had stubbornly been keeping at bay, floods in right then.

"I 'eard they share a mind, you know, that Flint and Silver," a slurring voice is saying, "Like one of them two headed beasts—like that fuckin’—what’s it’s—the mutt that guards hell, that one."

"Tha' one had three 'eads ya dunce," another voice pipes in. "It's got a name too, Cerb—cebre—ceberbe—whatever the fuck, it's go' a name and it's also go' three 'eads not two, so—"

"Shut the fuck up, Alf, yer mother darns socks in hell, alright—"

"Don't talk 'bout my mother like tha'!" 

"The past  _hour_?" When Flint meets Silver's eyes again they are shining unreadably in the dark. "You didn't think to say anything?"

Silver shrugs. "Didn't think it was important. Last I could catch was some talk of us being twins."

Flint almost chokes on his drink. “Twins,” he repeats, against his fist. "They think we're _related_." 

Silver hums around a mouthful of rum before swallowing. “That’s right. Apparently I got all the good looks in the family. Their words, not mine. If anything I disagree." 

"We don't even look—" Flint starts heatedly, and then stops when Silver’s mustache twitches. "You're  _enjoying_  this." 

"Well, you wanted us infamous," Silver says, and finally leans forward into the light as he breaks out into a wide grin. "And here we are, in infamy."

Flint glares at him. "Don’t be a shit. You _know_   this is not what I had in mind when I said—"

"I 'eard the lil' one's a mage," a different voice chimes in conspiratorially. "I 'eard he sacrificed his leg, used blood magic to raise Flint outta the depths, tha's what I 'eard."

"Raise Flint?" someone asks. "The fuck was Flint doin' in the depths? Did someone kill ‘im? Christ, is he undead?"

“Nah,” the first voice says. “It’s ‘cause he's—"

“A God," Flint says. He sets his glass down a little too hard. “They think I’m a God.”

It wasn't exactly surprising, of course. Flint had spent the past year carefully constructing a similar tale with the help of the man currently sharing his table. They had together forged Captain Flint into an unearthly harbinger of death and destruction. The success of their raids had depended almost entirely on the effective dissipation of the story across the West Indies, and so it was only natural that on the way it had birthed new ones, as good stories were wont to do. Still _—_ and as always _—_ it was one thing to know that people talked and another thing entirely to hear them do it.

Flint supposes he should feel more exposed, being spoken of this way, but all he feels is a yawning distance between himself and the man at the center of the tale. He still expects to see Silver's eyebrows shoot up at the revelation, for him to say something clever about Flint’s enduring penchant for arrogance being weaved into his legend in this way. Only Silver just looks inexplicably pleased, as if this is somehow his achievement. Christ.

"Yes, they talked about that before," he says. He uncorks the bottle with his mouth to pour Flint a generous heap of rum. Flint can’t remember downing the first. This evening is getting out of hand. "And to be honest with you, I'm inclined to agree."

Certain he’s misheard around the sight of Silver’s full mouth, Flint leans forward and blurts, " _What_?”

It only gets worse then; Silver's lips quirk up into a smirk. He sets the rum down and spits the cork out into his palm. "I already told you I thought you conjured us into that storm. It's not a big leap from that to immortal sea God, is it?"

“It’s fucking ridiculous,” Flint snaps. He feels himself bristle; half-drunk fools were allowed to believe him to be some sort of vengeful God but not Silver. Not anymore. “For what it’s worth, they think you’re a mage. If that is actually the case now would be the time to tell me." 

He realises his mistake when he sees Silver hesitate. Before he can backtrack, Silver's puzzled frown unwinds into something awed and careful. "We control the narrative here, Captain," he says gently, nudging Flint's glass at him. "If you'd like for both of us to be Gods, you only need to ask. If you'd like for us to be something else, well. Again, you need only to ask.”

The tavern is oppressively warm. The heat lays on top of Flint like a heavy hand but Silver smiles at him, then, quiet and close, and Flint feels himself shiver, down to his bones. He’s once more saved from responding when there's a faint wisp of conversation from behind the divider again. Instantly he has to busy himself with biting the inside of his cheek. The chuckle that threatens to bubble out of him sits in his throat, tickling, until he can't help it any longer; he feels his mouth twitch. It is a valiant but ultimately futile effort, because Silver is still too close. He catches it. Of course he catches it.

“What have they said now?” he demands, waving a hand towards the bard in the corner. “I can't hear them over whatever the fuck _that's_ supposed to be—someone should tell management that their choice for musical entertainment could double for an excellent method of torture.” 

"It's nothing," Flint says, ducking his head into his glass. 

Silver's hand slides further on the table; a threat, Flint supposes. " _Captain._ " 

Flint sighs. He's fully aware he has said a lot of ridiculous things in his life, but, "They think I'm the sea made flesh," really takes the cake. 

Of all fucking things, Silver _nods._  "Well, that's flattering," he says cheerfully. "Fits, too, as far as metaphors go. Untamed and ever changing and what not."

"What not." Flint repeats. "I'm not untamed."

"That's not what I meant—" Silver shifts in his chair a little, eyes bright. "Christ, have you ever seen yourself _fight_? It's not an insult it's like _—_ watching the fucking ocean _._ " He looks at Flint for a long moment before he blinks and drops his eyes to his drink. "Trust me. It fits."

"Mm." Flint says. He's starting to feel lightheaded, like he's swirling in his skin. He watches Silver's fingers drum against his glass; listens to the faint chime of his rings. It's likely the drink churning in Flint's belly that makes him open his mouth again. 

"They also think—” he starts, before biting his tongue with a grimace. 

"What?" Silver looks up. His damn throat is shining. Flint hopes the drink also accounts for the heat he feels rising in his neck, but suspects not.

" _What_?" Silver prompts at the same time Flint says, in a rush, “They think that I'm a God and that you're the last man on earth who still worships me." 

There's a long beat. “Oh," Silver says, and his mouth mimics the shape of the word. He swallows. "Well." 

If someone had asked Flint a few days ago whether or not Silver was a blusher Flint would have likely told them to fuck off and focus on the war. Only now it's happening in front of him and he can't fucking look away; colour seeps warm into Silver's cheeks as he slowly smiles again. This time it reaches his eyes, earnest instead of predatory, and he knocks his knee against Flint's beneath the table. He doesn't draw it back. It rests snug against the inside of Flint's thigh and something in Flint's gut pulls tight enough to snap. 

"That's even less of a leap, isn't it?" Silver is saying, though Flint doesn't hear any of it; the sea is rushing too loud in his ears. All he wants to do is turn into a tide himself, to surge forward until he meets Silver in the middle again. 

There's a thump, and a scrape, and someone sits down hard on the table behind them. Flint startles, almost knocks his fucking glass over.

"All you's wrong," the newcomer says. "All of yous—" 

“Yeah?” one of them demands, offended. “What’s your theory, then? Out with it, if you’re so clever.” 

“It ain’t about being clever, _Christ_. All you got ta do is _look_. You lot have two eyes, don’tcha? ‘Cept you, Freddie, sorry, mate—”

One of them interrupts, angry. “Was’ tha’ supposed to mean? Just spit it out, for fuck’s sakes!” 

“It means,” the newcomer says, “You must ‘ave seen the way they look at each other. They ain’t Gods, mate. They’re just—“

This time, Flint does actually choke on his drink. It twists in his throat, burning red hot as it goes down, and he feels Silver lean forward in a panic.  

“Christ, what _now_?” He bumps Flint’s leg again, though Flint is too busy still sputtering for breath to answer. “Captain. Captain?  _Flint!_ Our reputations are of paramount importance in the fight to come and as Quartermaster I believe I am entitled to know _—_ "

“It's nothing—it's—" Flint coughs, waving a dismissive hand, and he looks up just in time to see Silver's eyes go dark. 

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me—”

There’s a loud screech and suddenly Silver is out of his chair. He doesn't bother to grab his crutch from where it rests against the wall and instead braces an open hand first against the table, then on Flint’s forearm, bicep and shoulder as he hops purposefully forward. Flint's neck is next in line; Silver presses a warm hand against his sweat slicked skin _—_ and it fucking _sears_  like a brand _—_ before lowering himself into the seat wedged between Flint and the window.  

“Ahh, there,” Silver sighs. He settles in and drops his head against Flint's forearm resting on the back of the chair. “A wise woman once told me that pleasure must be shared equally. I find I've taken it to heart. Now we can both listen.” 

Flint turns to him and hastens to fill the silence; he's distantly aware he’s never spoken so quickly in his life, "Well, this has been—ah—an eventful evening but I think it's time that we—"

"They're fucking, mate!" the soon-to-be-dead man repeats, declaring it loud and clear over the din. "You lot are trying to complicate a real simple situation. It’s tha' fuckin' simple." 

There's no air in the room. Silver has gone so still that Flint can hear his own fucking heart beating in his ears, in his wrist, still trapped under the nape of Silver's warm neck. 

"Come off it!" a man cries. "Fucking as in—?"

"Fucking as in _fucking_ ," the first man snaps, followed by a definitive thump as if a fist was dropped onto the table, "As in _fucking_. Christ, how long 'ave you lot been sittin' here stewin' in rum’? Am I not speakin' the King's English? You'd 'ave to be fully blind not ta see that those two are together—and look, even Freddie’s fuckin’ nodding! Clearly yous just gotta be  _stupid_ , then _—_ " 

"Ah," Silver says, on an exhale. He blinks at the ceiling. "I see." 

Flint grimaces, manages to say, "Listen, it's—" and then Silver's mouth is on his. 

The world doesn't end. Silver kisses him and the world doesn't end; if anything, it roars to life, bright and fucking blinding. Silver has a hand on Flint's neck again only this time it's to tug him close, this time its to tilt his head so Silver can drag his tongue along Flint's bottom lip _—_ like he's asking permission, like he _needs_ permission _—_ and Flint thinks it's the easiest thing the world has ever asked of him, it's the _only_ thing the world has ever deigned to ask for before taking. He drives his hand into Silver's hair and the tie comes loose completely and it's only then that Silver understands because he groans into Flint's open mouth, fists a hand into the front of Flint's shirt and shifts in his seat until they are facing one another. 

They part, then. But Silver doesn't go far, doesn't let go of Flint's shirt, uses the leverage to bring their warm foreheads together instead. Flint has the single best angle in the world now to see Silver's still parted mouth curve into a smile.

“I think—” Silver says.

“Keep your fucking voices _down_ ,” a freshly panicked voice yells from behind the divider, loud enough to startle them both. “I jus’ heard _The Walrus_ docked at Freetown last night, they could be 'round here someplace, do ya really wanna be overheard by Gods _?_ ”

“Oh _shit_ ,” one of them laments in what Flint supposes is meant to be a whisper, “I ‘eard if you piss Flint off yer sure ta get becalmed the next time yer at sea—”  

“Fuck Flint!” one of them protests, and Flint has to clasp a hand over Silver’s mouth before he can yell a crude reply, “Far as I know Flint's never bashed a man’s ‘ead in with a metal fuckin’ shoe! If you don’t ever set sail again Flint can’t do shit to ya but how in the fuck are you gonna run from a God who walks on land and never _forgets_?” 

There's a beat of ominous silence, before one of them helpfully chimes in, wailing; “We’re dead men thas what we are, we're all of us dead, we're _dead_ , Christ, wha' if they can hear us already? I read somewhere tha’ Gods can hear yer thoughts, the thoughts you 'ave in your _head_ —the _thoughts_ —"

"Don't be daft, Alfie, ya can't even  _read—"_

At this point they are both laughing so hard that Silver is wheezing into the dip of Flint’s throat and Flint has to press his face into Silver’s hair. By the time the conversation behind them has dimmed into a paranoid silence Silver has nosed his way into Flint’s shirt and is pressing open-mouthed kisses into the line of Flint’s collarbones, humming absently to himself.

"I told you they were terrified of us,” he murmurs darkly, and nips at a jut of bone in a way that’s just on this side of painful. "Turns out we're both Gods, after all. Isn't that grand?" 

"You realise _—"_ Flint starts, and Silver licks at him then so he has to stop and catch his breath _._  He has to tip Silver’s face up next, lest the tavern truly have a show worth watching soon. He holds Silver still at arm's length, with a thumb around the pulse on his neck, and manages to say, "You realise this makes the rumours somewhat _true_?"  

Silver's skin is impossibly warm. His heart is beating fast against Flint's hand, but he's _smiling_ , holding Flint's gaze; eyes bright and cheeks flushed and mouth red, his hair in fucking disarray. And he looks _—_ Flint's head swims for a dizzying moment, something twisting tight in his chest _—_ Silver looks so fucking content like this that Flint suddenly wants to kiss him all over. 

"Somewhat?" Silver asks, airily. He arches an eyebrow and holds up a hand, makes sure Flint has seen it, and then drops it deliberately on the inside of Flint's thigh.

It's a wonder their chairs don't go flying across the room with the speed at which they run out of the tavern. Flint chances a look back as they are stumbling away, still laughing—and there's another brawl happening, the bard is still singing, and it's clear nobody has fucking noticed two pirate kings mauling one another in the corner. 

 _Christ_ , he thinks—as Silver slants him a dark grin and pulls him into an alley by the front of his shirt—he fucking  _loves_ Freetown. 

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE THEIR LOVE. COME [YELL AT ME](https://annevbonny.tumblr.com) ABOUT THEIR LOVE. <3


End file.
